“Once we stop seeing scent as decoration and start recognizing it as cultural information, it becomes a medium through which the world can be read and interpreted in entirely new ways,” the exhibition’s curator, Robert Müller-Grünow, told me in over email. He believes that, when using smell as a curatorial tool, “it becomes a way of thinking, because it opens up different pathways to understanding,” and, in doing so, “shifts visitors from passive looking to embodied understanding, often opening access to ideas that are difficult to express through text or image alone, as scents have immediate and purely emotional effects.”

— On the exhibit “The Secret Power of Scents” at Kunstpalast Düsseldorf. Read more in Is Smell the Next Big Thing in Art? at artnet.

Some Massachusetts residents aren’t happy with Dunkin’ Donuts, claiming they’re smelling too much of the company’s sweet treats in their town.

“It smells like donuts, all the time,” Sean Wilson said during a recent Haverhill city council meeting. His grievances were aired by NBC10 Boston in a Tuesday, Dec. 23 news report.

Though his comments were met with laughs, he added that the issue has gone on for “two months” and is “distracting.”

— Read more in Neighbors Complain About ‘Overwhelming’ and ‘Distracting’ Smell Coming from Dunkin Donuts Factory, Bring Issue to City Council at People.

We are addle-brained and anxious, overwhelmed by apps, AI slop, and existential dread—but the fact that we long for things like grace, class, tranquility, clarity, optimism, and wild abandon proves just how much we need them. Spraying on a fragrance that closes a gap in time and brings those notions into the present doesn’t just make us feel better, it may be an Ariadne’s thread that can lead us out of the labyrinth.

— Read more in Why All of a Sudden Is Every Fragrance Nostalgic? at Town & Country.